Project Alice
by Caexah
Summary: What if our puppeteer had another reason to avoid doing her best? A very good reason?


Don't own Touhou Project.

AN\\ Random Idea in my head.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

'why... why am I laying on the floor?'

The whole room was a blur for Alice's eyes though she could vaguely see the ceiling. She wondered a bit why she was so dizzy and had a urge to vomit, and otherwise had it as she was about to die an horrible and slow death.

'poison?'

She could just be sick she supposed, but she never gotten sick so violently before that she passed out, and she couldn't remember being sick yesterday.

Now that she thought about it what did she do yesterday?

For some reason she had trouble remembering it.

She was preparing something?

What she was preparing was currently escaping her mind in an very annoying Marisa like manner.

Wait... Marisa.

That shameless woman drugged her didn't she?

That had been a game for some time for that Black-white woman to try to use her potions on her by hiding them in her tea, she never fell for it yet but this time it seemed like the woman succeeded. The result is her feeling sick on the floor with no strength to move.

She gave a small sigh of relief when could feel her magic inside her body begin to fight against the sickness, and whatever that was coursing it. Alice suddenly got a very bad feeling when she noticed her magic reserve was almost depleted, and the remaining fighting against the sickness.

It wasn't good when one's magic reserve disappeared without the owner knowing where it had gone, for obvious reasons.

Her reserve was slowly filling itself out again however so whatever happened didn't damage her ability to use magic at least. She was still fearing for an explosion though.

Since she couldn't move yet, and had no intention of trying to move before her magic had beaten the sickness, she just laid there on the floor trying to find out what happened to her.

She was preparing to... check out Hohai and Shanghai by releasing her seal on the book which acted as an limiter on her power.

Apparently Marisa thought the book was a chap power up which she stole from her mother, it wasn't. She always have had a high magic reserve that she had problems controlling, and her mother had locked parts of her power away. The book contained a part of her power which she reclaimed to have a rematch with Reimu, who in their first fight said some hurting words.

So she had released it to better check Hohai and Shanghai magically as she had access to a high level scan spell she couldn't use normally because of the high power cost.

Then... pain.

Followed almost immediately with blissful darkness.

Ever so slowly the need to vomit disappeared as more magic returned to her system. She was also getting energy to move but it was slow progress as her body was still full of pain, but it was disappearing faster and faster the more magic she had working on it.

When she begun to have more magic than normal she didn't worry immediately as she assumed her limiter was still off. But when her body had more magic than what she she gotten with that limiter off she begun to worry.

And worry she did.

Almost sent her straight into a full blown panic attack.

'wait... I don't remember that there was that far to the ceiling...'

Foreboding feelings seemed to invade her right now as she got the one bad feeling after another as she continued to notice things out of place. An explosion seemed to have happened in her living room with her laying at the center.

Shanghai and Hohai seemed whole, but sightly damaged at the far wall. The magical protections on them seemed to spare them from being rendered asunder like the other items in the room like the chair and table.

Many of the books also had magical protections so they also seemed somewhat whole.

Anything also seemed bigger to the laying Alice, as in it had grown or something.

Her magical reserve continued to grow even if it long exceed what should have been allowed by her other limits. Well not limits, as it suggested that she could break them. She couldn't.

Her power was taken from her, with her permission, by the one she call her mother.

The queen of Makai, Shinki.

It was when Alice had killed, no, slaughtered a city after have been rendered mad by her own power. It wasn't that she couldn't use her magic that she got her limit, but that her magic used her.

When she went mad she was defeated by the Youkai that was Shinki, well not defeated as her power was truly monstrous when that happened and Shinki didn't have the majority of her power then, but she managed to make her exhaust her power enough so her sanity returned.

Then Alice instantly threw the fight.

At the time Shinki needed power, badly.

There was no queen of Makai at the time, Makai didn't exist at all.

Instead the place they was in was called Hell.

Alice was born there from a tribe of humans that had somehow gotten a portal messed up that sent them straight to Hell.

Like Shinki the Humans needed power, badly, to survive in Hell without having to hide like cowards. So they wanted to create the ultimate Witch that could cave out their place in hell for them, under their complete control of course.

So they began what they called.

Project Alice.

There was about 20 children to start with, all girls they named Alice.

When the Incident occurred only one of the original 20 Alice was alive.

It was a dark part of her life filled with pain, loneliness, and loss.

They wasn't being gentle with her, some even went out of their way to make things painful, she was replaceable after all. When all the others died new children was being brought into the laboratory. It was half a year after the project started. Even children from other Youkai they had kidnapped was brought in to be experimented on.

Then one of their experiments went... completely and utterly Right.

If their goal was gaining of untold amount of power that is.

If their goal was to be able to keep the power and the lone Alice from the first generation under their control...

They failed Epically.

After a truly mind boggling amount of pain Alice went mad with her new power, and utterly killed them in horrifying painful ways. After have finished with the humans the brought so much pain upon her she attacked a city controlled by Youkai.

It was a dark time and she tried to avoid thinking about if she could.

But after she threw the fight to Shinki, and asked to be killed before the power took control again. When the woman refused now the gentle Alice had resurfaced from the lunacy that controlled, refusing to kill innocent children.

And no matter how much Alice argued she was a monster deserving to be killed, the woman didn't go back on her decision.

At the time Alice could feel the power begun to escape her control again, and since she didn't want to sink into the all consuming madness again she offered to transferee her power into the woman, for the woman to take care of her if she wouldn't kill.

A trade. Power in return for care.

The transfer spell was not one she used herself, but she had seen it used very often when her former 'caretakers' experimented.

The woman agreed to the deal.

In return for the power the girl would give to her the woman would take care of the girl.

Using the spell Alice went into a coma she didn't wake up from in forever almost. countless thousands of years had passed when she was asleep, and when she woke up not that relatively long time ago to find her mother the queen of an ream the woman had created herself.

Thankfully she didn't age for some reason when she was asleep.

Even with the wast majority of her power gone she still had a lot of magical power which was had been hard to control for such young girl. Shinki sealed a good amount of the power into a book which she could unseal when she got older and more in control of her mind and magic.

However she never showed interest in getting that seal unlocked even when Shinki said Alice would be fully capable of controlling the power within with ease.

The growing girl didn't want to take even an remote risk of running out of control, a risk that Shinki would be fully capable to take care of easily since the woman was far more powerful that Alice with the power stored within the book.

It was only when she wanted an rematch against Reimu she went to get it to use it for the first time, but even after getting defeated she didn't begin to use the power regularly. She didn't even draw upon the full power of the book, or fully release the seal keeping some of her power in it. If she broke the seal the book would have been destroyed.

However now with the growing power within her she begun to have flashbacks of time her going berserk. She grimaced. She didn't want to go insane once again.

Not that going insane felt bad, it felt very mind-shattering good.

Closing her eyes she fanatically begun to control and calm her magic that was already begun to try to escape her control.

Her mother told her it was the first time the magic tried to take over was the worst, after that it would be easier to control the power. The magic wanted to see if the user was worthy of using it and deliberately try to escape control the first time it awaken.

After that it would get easier.

So with a will power she didn't know she had Alice forced the power under her control, and kept it there with a iron-will that would have made lesser mortals break if it was turned towards them.

It seemed like an endless circle inside her body. Her power would grow and try to break her control, she would ruthlessly eliminate all opposition of her domination, only for her power to grow again for an another attempt of freeing itself from her control.

Continuing endlessly.

And just as she was sure she was about to lose control and she had to make an attempt to kill herself, it calmed.

Ohh, it was still hard to control, but at last not it didn't feel like it was actively attempting to break free or take over her mind.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief.

The pain that plagued her body also disappeared, leaving nothing but a physical discomfort cursed by laying on the floor.

She kept just laying there as she went through memories and thought she had suppressed so deep she didn't even know she had them. After a few years of living as a princess pain stuck again. Makai was attacked by a witch that wanted to rule, in the fight much of the town burned down and dead and dieing people laid randomly here and there on the street.

The sad thing was that while she gave away her power she could still feel it as it was her own. And seeing the magic Shinki promised to create with used for destruction as she once did in the town all these years ago.

While she could understand that the foe was vastly powerful so that her mother had to use these destructive abilities to kill her enemy, some resentment lingered. A resentment of her own power.

Alice honestly didn't blame Shinki for it, more herself and the cursed power.

It was the first time in more than thousand years someone powerful tried to get the throne of Makai from Shinki, and it happened exactly five years after she woke up, the same day, the same hour.

She viewed it was her fault the people died, she was too close to her cursed power.

So she distanced herself from the holder of her power, Shinki.

'wait a moment, MOM!' thought Alice panicking.

If she had her power again than what happened with the one she gave her power to? Got the power striped of her? Dead?

"tch!" Alice sat up, even if she kept her distance she loved her mother very much. It seems the there would be a family reunion soon as Alice had no intention of not seeing if her mother was okay right now. She would made preparations of her departure to Makai now.

When she tried to walk in a hurry... But she fell to the ground having tried to walk while stood on her clothes in the same way if you are in clothes way too big for you and you stand on the rim of it. Only here it was more extreme size wise.

Blinking Alice looked down herself.

Either her clothes had grown a lot, or she had sunk.

Her clothes was literally twice as big as herself, minimum, and with her luck she was pretty sure it wasn't the clothes that grown. If she sunk it would also explain why anything seem so much bigger now and why there was so high to the ceiling.

"damn" swore Alice, she was really frustrated at this set back to her departure to see her mother. Closing her eyes she called a little magic to the surface, which she used to make two strings with, one to Shanghai and on to Hohai.

They worked fine enough to get a scissor since they had so much protective magic in them, and the little damage there was she could fix later. Fitting the rather big scissor into her small hands she began to cut into the clothes to make it fit better. With real string and a needle she made it acceptable to wear, but not something that would be able to last for more than a week or looked good.

Surprisingly she was easily able to get full control of the body, and the right distance between her and things. Busying herself with getting ready she took the time to look at herself in a mirror.

Golden eyes of suppressed power looked back from the mirror in the face of an nine year old child.

She had been de-aged.

"what did Marisa's drug do to me?" She whispered as she reached out with an hand seeing with mild horror the mirror image do the same.

She feverishly shook her head to get out of the mind numbing trance she fell in as she followed by Shanghai and Hohai left the house. Run over to stand in the middle of the rather big and well kept garden. She had her things in a small side pack which was now relatively big for her now.

She didn't need anything big as her most priced property was either the small items in the back that hold great memories or the bigger things she left behind in Makai.

She again carefully pulled on her magic after having breathed in deeply.

This times it was a spell she had used countless time since she learned it, the spell almost unconsciously made itself due the mastery the practice she had with it.

The flight spell.

Sure there was some problems with the speed as she didn't weight as much right now as she did the last time she used it, but that isn't really mean anything except more speed which suited the hurrying witch just fine. She continued to accelerate faster and faster until she reached faster than she ever did before, and after a brief stop at that speed to check her control she just continuing accelerating.

Reaching the gateway that bind the ream she was in, Gensokyo, to the realm she wanted to travel to, Makai, within minutes. The entry was small into the tunnel that acted as the portal. Without stopping or other wise slow down to travel the small turn into the tunnel she just continued at the breakneck speed she was in and made a masterful sharp turn.

Out of the tunnel in less than a minute she set her cause towards the palace in the big city she was still outside. She gave a sigh of relief the city was on fire and was whole. It was still day so there was people walking around on the streets and some was flying to their goals. It was normal, and peaceful like it used to be when she lived here.

However she didn't allow herself to be slowed down from reaching her goal, mostly because she wasn't sure if she would be able to work up the nerve if she didn't do it _now._

Racing towards the palace shifty avoided all attempts to stop her by the guards, she was faster than them by a good margin so it was easy enough. Any shield that was placed in her way she broke through with superior power.

She could feel it within her, again trying to to run amok in anyway it could. Her power was reaching out in any way possible, and some not possible but apparently was anyway because it was magic, to do... something... anything...

it reached towards her body, her soul which she become frighteningly aware of in ways she never been before, and her body. But not only that it tried to reach into the air, tried to sneak into minds of the people that was pursuing her. She could even feel it try to reach in between the realms.

And just overall doing thing she didn't think was possible. It seemed semi-sentient really.

Thanks to her earlier getting it under control she avoided it sneaking off doing... something, but it was getting harder to control the more magic she was using at once.

When a particularly hard attempt to reach towards her mind by her magic, she had to slow down her flight a bit so she wasn't using so much magic on that. Also rather than bashing through the shields and barriers before she moved around them in a impressive show of acrobatic and flight control.

She reached the palaces with a lot of guards after her, but didn't show down when she landed before it. Then with as fast as her small legs could bear her she ran. She flared her magic dangerously at the guards to keep them in place, her power output right there and then almost made her magic go berserk and she couldn't control all of it. Her magic materialized in the form of bright glowing gold eyes, and an aura that made the weaker servants faint.

At the time it didn't strike her mind she could fly inside too, her body and mind followed memories of an far younger self that had not yet learned to fly. Alice followed a path she had used many times before. A path that lead to the gardens where she and Shinki had spent much time together, and where Shinki usually was when not at a meeting or something happened that required the attention of the queen of an entire realm. Often bringing her work there.

It was Shinki and Alice's favorite place in the palace.

Suddenly a blond woman with wavy hair in red and white maid outfit and yellow eyes appeared before her with a sword drawn.

"who dare invade-" started the maid in a loud yelling voice.

"Yumeko" interrupted Alice what was sure to be a tirade of insults, she wasn't slowing down her walk "is mom in the garden?"

The woman startled at bit at being interrupted by someone that appeared to know her. Yumeko looked close at Alice and got a blast from the past. That face was very familiar after all, though it looked far younger than the last time she saw it.

"Alice?!"

"Is mom in the garden?" repeated Alice her earlier sentence already walking past Yumeko.

"how ar-" spluttered Yumeko before being interrupted by an intense wave of power that heavily reminded the woman of Shinki when she was angry and impatient, however rare that was.

This young Alice half turned to stare at the woman with one shining eye that seemed to fill all of Yumeko's vision become of the sheer magnitude of power just barely contained within. A power that just needed the barest excuse to extinguish her life like it was candle light.

"y-yes, she should be there" stuttered Yumeko at the one her creator call her daughter. She finally found out why Shinki called Alice that, or thought she found out why. Alice contained a unmeasurable amount of power just like Shinki.

Before today Yumeko had wondered why her queen had gotten so attached to the small and relatively weak girl, and now she could be better without having found that out.

"Her condition?" asked Alice even as she walked faster, for some reason not running anymore. Having instinctively figured out if she was in the garden she wasn't dead.

"she should be okay" answered the maid uncertain why Shinki should have been harmed.

After a second the maid loyalty kicked to her reason to make it function again, so she asked "have something happened?"

Alice didn't answer but continued walking.

After a second of hesitation where the blond maid decide between following Alice, or stop the girl to find out what could have happened to Shinki, she decided to follow behind the girl. A optimal position if the girl wasn't Alice, but an assassin in an unusual disguise. Her blade would be able to strike the girl down from behind if needed be.

The door out to the garden was closed, but it bust open as soon Alice laid her hand on it. Her magic enhanced her strength to absurd heights. It was clear that the girl no longer cared if her magic ran amok within her, she still prevented it from affecting her surroundings though.

She stepped into a truly beautiful garden with very well kept plants. It had a peaceful aura that made Alice relax a little and calm her magic a bit.

"Mom!?" she yelled into the garden.

Shinki who was preparing for a fight since she felt the power of an approaching person that seemed very upset, if her out of control like aura had anything to say. She felt worry when she sensed her personal maid make contact to the owner of the aura, Yumeko was a dear friend after all and a good servant. She knew her maid was strong in her own right, but the power this intruder gave off was too big for her to think Yumeko could beat the person.

She made preparation to help Yumeko, when her maid's aura gave of intense confusion before they both begun to walk this way. The will to fight had disappeared.

Then finally when they reached the garden a very familiar shout rung out over the place. A shout that she would be able to recognize anytime.

It belonged to the one which she view as her beloved daughter.

The fist five years after Alice's awakening had been some of her very best in her long life, filled with laughter and happy feelings.

Then on that faithful day where she and her unnamed enemy made the city burn in their fight, anything changed for their relationship.

It happened slowly, but there was nothing to be done, that Alice distanced herself from her. It was not hard to figure out why. The scene had reminded her little girl about her own deeds, and wanted to distance herself from the one that reminded her of it.

It didn't help Alice had made a friend that died in the fire.

It hurt a lot having her own child slowly leave her without her able to do anything.

More than any physical wounds ever did, and she had a lot of those over the years.

Shinki had slowly gotten use to the idea that Alice would leave, avoiding her. Didn't mean she had to like it though.

So now, her beloved child's voice echoed over the garden, sounding worried and far younger than it should.

She was off like lightning. Her six dark purple wings appeared behind her as an effect of her flight spell. A powerful one at that.

Appearing in front of the entrees in less than a full second she found herself hugged by an armful of mini Alice before she could properly understand what was happening.

Not that she couldn't have stopped the hug if she wished. But Shinki found herself frozen when she saw the young face of Alice with the golden eyes with no trace of the normal beautiful blue.

The eyes she had when they first meet so many years ago when Alice attacked that city. The golden eyes Alice had when she went insane with her own power.

Not to mention she just remembered where she had felt the power this Alice was lacking, the same on that night so many year back. The power Alice had before giving it to her.

The whole episode was still so very fresh in her mind even after so many years.

Utterly confused she held Alice when she began to cry into her dress. She threw a glance at Yumeko but her maid looked just as confused as she felt.

She wonder what happened to make Alice get her power back, de-age her into a child, hurry back into her arms and cry.

It was very unlikely Alice had gotten her power back consciously. Since awakening she had a very strong aversion of power, which was understandable after what she did last time she had power. It was so bad the girl even refused to do her best at some things because she feared how good her best was.

Not because she feared doing her best and failing, but doing her best and succeeding beyond what she wanted.

The girl even refused the book with her own power back even when she could control it easily, though she did take it back not that relatively long ago.

So what happened?

Finally Alice stopped crying an relaxed into Shinki. The little girl relaxed so much that when Shinki held the girl out to see if she was able to talk the girl had fallen asleep on her feet.

Shinki seeing the tears on her little girl's face drove a concussion on why.

"did someone bully Alice?" asked Shinki no one as the air grew heavy with a dark foreboding miasma of power being greathearted. "it was the shine girl wasn't it? Knew that girl was no good. I shall show her the darkest and cruelest tortures a fire demon from the ancient hell would chill just hearing about-"

The whole time the miasma grew heavier and heavier upon poor Yumeko, who was having trouble not doing more than shaking, like running away. "My lady... is that really Alice? Her power, is, different"

Without warning the dark cloud disappeared and Shinki was all smiles again, all to happy to talk about her child.

"i don't know how it was possible but Alice got her old power back again, it would have been impossible to copy that aura combined with that strength"

"you mean..."

"that she always was this strong?" asked Shinki with amused eyes "yes, and no. Alice went berserk and went on a murder rampage with her powers when she was just a child, and you know Alice, she hate being cruel. So her going on a wide shale massacre hit her hard, so she sealed her power away forever."

"so mistress Alice got her original power back? Did the seal break?" asked Yumeko as she gave a look of sympathy at little Alice always had been kind, good with animals and plants.

"no. and that is what confuse me so much" frowned Shinki sightly, who despite liking being happy all the time had a thing for mysteries.

"what do you mean" asked Yumeko.

"when she mean sealed away forever she meant it. I know for a fact that Alice's old power she gave away is still there and not going anywhere fast" explained Shinki "that could also explain why she come to see me so fast. From the uncontrolled raw feel of her power it haven't been that long since her power returned."

"gave away?" questioned Yomeko curiously, she was Shinki's maid long before Alice appeared and this whole thing was confusing to her. She haven't heard anything about Alice went on a rampage, and she was sure with the power Alice had right now she would have heard about it.

Giving her creation a long look, before sighing, Shinki denied her servant a explanation.

"I am sorry but any further it would go into Alice's secrets and past that she is trying to forget. I will however say there are more to Alice than just a child i took a fancy to and decided to adopt"

The woman and literally god of Makai looked at the sky with Alice still in her arms, before turning towards her maid.

"Yumeko please reschedule anything this evening and tomorrow to a later date. I have important matters to attend. If not possible to reschedule I trust you are capable of handling it"

Yumeko stood straighter and nodded, before leaving her queen to tend to the sleeping Alice. It have been a long time since the maid had seen such happiness on her queen's face. So she took of to make sure no one bothered them, even if she had to spill blood for it.

Honestly some of people that bothered her queen was people that didn't know how to wipe their own ass and had to get someone to do it for them, and wanted the queen to be the one that did it. Yumeko had long been against the kindness she showed to the people that used her to fix their own insignificant problems for them.

And now she got a chance to tell them where she thought they could shove it, politely of course.

She had before been given the role of word carrier for the sole ruler of Makai when the woman first raised Alice when the girl was young, and she could honestly admit she missed making the idiots swat and deal with their own problems themselves or be fired from their positions.

But first she had make the guards stand down before they invaded the palace to find Alice who they thought was an intruder and assassin.

Shinki was putting Alice in her bed with an motherly care that couldn't be faked. The woman care for Alice like she was born her own child. Doing the long time she had been alive she had begun to want a child, however she couldn't have children herself due to a side effect of the many wars and conflicts she had been in. she had apparently taken one to many curses, and while she looked at her creations as children she never quite raised one herself.

She had set her eyes on Alice as her child, had felt a unique bond with the little girl who begged her to kill her, who upon Shinki's refusal gave the woman her own power, who was at the time in a coma.

She didn't know what happened to have Alice regain her youth and power, but she knew that the girl's state was stable except the odd flicker of power. Which was normal for someone that gained a lot of power fast, the power was changing the body in subtle ways to be able to safely contain it. The same happened to her, and a lot of other people over the years.

Anything was perfectly fine.

Hugging the sleeping Alice the Queen of demons went to dreamland to get the best sleep she had in ages.

Her beloved child was back in her arms.


End file.
